


Itching, Scratching, Biting

by DeadlyToxins



Series: In Human Skin [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied Petplay, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21691396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadlyToxins/pseuds/DeadlyToxins
Summary: His Finn is...something. That, he knows. However, Kylo knows very little about what makes Finn so uniquely special. In fact, he also knows very little about what makes he himself so uniquely special.Well, maybe not...uniquely, per say.
Relationships: Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn/Kylo Ren
Series: In Human Skin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1563655
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Finnlo-Focused Multiship Anthology 2019





	Itching, Scratching, Biting

**Author's Note:**

> Hello.
> 
> Hm. We'll be honest, this...didn't come out the way we wanted it to, a lot of things are missing and shown incorrectly and honestly it still probably needs to go through further editing. Actually, yes, it will go through further editing. Anyways, this little thing is the first part in a series we've wanted to work on for...hm, who knows how long. We can't keep track of the time no matter how hard we try. Oh well.
> 
> *coughs* Anyways, here is our submission for the Finnlo-Focused Multiship Anthology! Yes, this is a bad first part, but please feel free to stick around until we can gather the strength to edit this properly or put out the much better in quality second part to this series; it'll be from Finn's POV and will also be focused on him. Although, to be fair, that'll be written when we're in better health, and who knows when that'll be.
> 
> As always, please leave kudos or a comment if you liked it, it would make our day...or night. Whenever we're lucid, really. Just know that we'll love it.

_**Itch.** The Itch of ten thousand mites crawling beneath his skin, burrowing and burrowing tirelessly, endlessly._

_**Itch.** Ants. Ants of who knows how many different species racing across his skin, in too much of a hurry for him to bear. Where are they going? What do they seek? His se—_

“Kylo?”

_**Scratch.** Scratching and scratching and scratching. Something inside wants out. No, he knows what it is, It wants out. This much is clear. Why won’t he let It out? Because he can’t, or because he won’t?_

_**Itch.** Cowardice. The itch of **cowardice**. He knows it deep down in his bones, just like the itch, in fact. They are apart of him, even though they shouldn’t be. How...funny._

“Kylo?”

_**Itch.** Itch. Itch. Itch. An incessant buzz beneath his skin now. Consequences are coming. They are coming, and there is no stopping them. What will he do? What will he do? What will he do? He can’t keep this up. It’s simply not possible. Something must be done. Something must be done... **what will be done?**_

“Kylo, hang—”

_Scratching, scratching, **scratching**. What a fool he is. An utter **fool**. Keeping this inside for so long, only giving it a bubble of air to greedily drink in every distant millennium before showing it down beneath the waves to not die, but only suffocate. There no longer is a need for It to fear, to struggle, however, for **It** is—_

**“Look at me.”**

Kylo opens his eyes, only to rapidly blink away the brightness that clouds his vision, his chest heaving harder than it ever has in his lifetime. After a minute, he realizes that their bedroom isn’t actually all that bright, the room being warmly lit with a scent he can’t quite describe instead. Yet, with a simple turn of his head, he soon comes face to face with a very, very worried Finn.

There’s...a light pause.

_Scratch._

“Jakku.” Finn says, gently threading his fingers through his partner’s hair. “We’re stopping.”

Kylo bows his head and lets out a frustrated hiss into the near-silent room. This is...humiliating. Utterly humiliating. “I’m sorry.” He says, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

The fingers move from running through his hair to running over his left shoulder blade, gently massaging. “Hey, you don’t have anything to be sorry about. We can’t control our emotions,” Finn says, whispering, almost, “and you’re obviously troubled by something.”

_Itch. Itch. **Scratch.**_

A single, deep inhale of air. “Yes. I am, I am, I just...I just need a minute.” A single, deep exhalation of the same air. “Just a minute.”

There’s the feeling of his hands being free, and then pressure being applied under his arms; a cue. He stands up and Finn’s voice fills his ears once again. “Let's sit down on the bed, it's more comfortable.”

And they do. They sit upon their king-sized bed covered with the quilt they handstitched together, with Kylo worrying and fussing over Finn to keep from speaking of the Thing that is unspeakable to him, and Finn patiently waiting for Kylo to speak of the unknowingly unspeakable Thing, or Things, on his mind.

Finn curls his left hand and flicks his wrist, and a good portion of the quilt slips from underneath them to wrap around Kylo’s broad shoulders. He then moves to remove the maroon leather collar from around Kylo’s neck, only to have him violently jerk away.

His partner gives a full body shudder, as if he didn’t have most of their quilt wrapped around his pale shoulders. “Please, please don’t. I—I _need_ it.” Kylo whimpers.

Nodding, Finn presses a kiss to the silver nameplate of the collar instead. “Okay, okay. We’re leaving the collar on.” He says softly.

The gentlest of kisses are laid upon Finn’s head in return in quick succession, but the speed is nowhere near the point of being described as rapid. He takes hold of Finn’s hands and runs his fingers over them, silently panicking about the situation, silently debating if he should leave kisses upon his love’s fingers and hands as well or leave them be. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His Finn makes a sound between a scoff and a dull laugh. “Yeah...normally I would drop it, but whatever’s been goin’ on in your head has been affecting you for a long while now. Rey, Jannah, and Rose have been able to see it, and I’ve been able to see and _sense_ it.” He presses his hands against the ones that hold them, “I should’ve said something to you about it soon—”

**_“This isn’t your fault!”_ **

Finn startles and blinks, dark brown eyes opened wide, and Kylo puts his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” He says, his words muffled, “I should have told you about it, it’s just that...playing makes it worse, but also better. I thought It would go away in time.”

Finn's eyes narrow. “So, this _has_ been bothering you for a while—and especially during our play—and you didn’t think to _tell_ me? _At all?”_

“It’s...complicated.”

“Well, can you try to explain?”

A whine crawls up and out of Kylo’s throat without him meaning it too, but he’s able to cut it off sharply. He can’t be weak, not now. “There’s something... _in_ me, and It wants out.” He says slowly, pondering his every word, “I don’t know what It is, and but I’m sure It’s nefarious.”

A pause.

“I...indulge It, sometimes.”

“Indulge—? Ah.”

“...What?”  
  
“I want to try something. Do you trust me?”

“Of course.”

His Finn narrows his eyes at him. “I’m serious, Ren.”

“So am I.”

His Finn continues to look at him with narrowed eyes, although his right hand comes up, ever so slowly, and reaches for Kylo’s heart at a snail pace. 

It feels like hours have surely gone by before his Finn holds the palm of his right hand over his heart, and Kylo immediately sucks in a breath through his teeth; his chest fills overly warm—no, not overly warm, positively melting—and his heart as if it were stuttering, as if it were being pulled and tugged a forward into that waiting hand. It’s intense—no, it’s more than intense, more than overwhelming, too. He doesn’t think there’s a word in any known human language for this, for this...feeling? There can’t be.

Can there?

_“Do you trust me?”_

Kylo breathes, tears in his eyes.

“Yes.”

* * *

No.

_No_ , is, for lack of a better term, the feeling he gets when he sits outside of this entrance, and he has always, always heeded it. Long ago coming to the conclusion that it must’ve been some mystic extra measure his Finn came up with to keep him out of his private space along with the stunning silver locks on the door.

"You comin'?"

Kylo sputters, his brain moving too fast for his mouth, "I—I'm not supposed to be down there."

His Finn hums, looking slightly contemplative. "You're right, but you’re also okay, I'm sure Akwamama will be understanding." He continues into the basement without a care in the world. "Come on, then." He calls, his figure no longer in his partner's line of sight. The bottom of the staircase shrouded in black.

"Ye—Yeah. Coming."

He makes his way down the stairs, wincing every time they creak under his weight. He won’t tell a living soul, but he is both excited and deeply afraid; he's never been down here, it’s his Finn's personal, semi-secret space that he, under no circumstances, was allowed to encroach upon, and he forever will respect that. But, he's not quite sure of what him being here will entail. His heart still beats heavily against his ribcage, the bones in his arms in legs sting at him sharply from the inside, and his eyes still water occasionally; every time he blinks he sees constellations. Everything that makes him him recovering from the spell Finn had performed on him. 

While everything wasn’t painful per say, and his sense of self has improved immensely, it has certainly made him sore in more places than one.

When Kylo makes it to the bottom of the steps, he stops in his tracks.

The first thing Kylo notices is that the basement, simply put, is not a basement, it is a _room_. A quite large room, and it is grandiose indeed.

The second thing Kylo notices is that the room in it's entirety is illuminated in a soft sky blue by the use of black pillar candles alight with light blue flame, the light sources placed painstakingly in just the right places, as no part of the room seems to be too bright or too dark.

Obsidian shelves tall enough to tower over him and as wide as a short school bus surround him, most of them filled with books, some of them filled with jars holding things ranging from body parts to powders to—seemingly—mundane objects.

It puts Kylo in the mind of a public library crossed with a cozy living room. A type of study, then? It has to be, as there is a desk that sits in the middle of it all, innocuous, yet not. It is as large as everything else that is placed within the room—well, large for a regular desk, anyway. Upon it sits crystals of varying shapes and sizes, although they are pretty dull in color, however much that they also vary in color. What isn't dull though is the crystal ball that is settled on the desk among the insignificant crystals and sweet smelling herbs, glowing the same bright blue the pillar candles are alight with.

He's…drawn to it in a way he can't properly articulate, his legs carrying him to the center of the room even as he shivers, the feeling of eyes bearing down on the skin of neck stronger than it ever was before.

" _Kylo!_ There's someone I need you to meet!"

Kylo jumps, fake volts of electricity wracking his body. He quickly stills though and turns his head towards the voice. Or, he tries to, at least. "Where are you?" He yells.

“I'm—wait a second!”

A gentle pull appears on the edge of Kylo’s awareness, soft in it’s golden light. He concentrates on it as best as he can and beings following it.

The soft pull pulls him through the maze of shelves and cabinets and tables, and brings him to another door. This one is obsidian in color, just like the bookshelves and tables, but there is a distinct lack of physical silver locks, as there is a digital keypad right beside the door in it’s place.

Light gold sweeps across his vision and the numbers twelve, eighteen, and fifteen spread across his mind's eye. He swiftly punches in the numbers and the numbers on the keypad glow green, the locked door opening shortly afterwards.

This room is significantly smaller in size, and Kylo is slightly grateful for that. He finds his Finn placing what seems to be the last pillar candle on an outline of a sigil painted black on the grey carpet. 

“Chausiku! _Chausiku!”_ He yells, frustration coloring his tone, but only mildly. “Oh come _on_ , where did you run off to?”

_Chausiku?_ Kylo clears his throat.

Finn looks up from underneath the cabinet and quickly makes his way over to him, grabbing Kylo by the elbow and gently guiding him to stand over the sigil. It beings to glow a deep, dark red.

“Yeah, looks like we should been done this alright.”

“What?”

“I don’t like to rush these things, or do them without Chausiku, but we just don’t have the time. You’re moving too fast.”

_“What?”_

“ _Breathe_ , Kylo.”

And so Kylo does; one simple giant inhale and—

He falls.

* * *

He's alive.

He…thinks so, at least.

One inhale, and one exhale, and Kylo stands up.

On his hands and feet.

What. _What_.

“So...how ya feelin’ hon?”

Kylo blinks, and looks _up_.

And up.

And up.

And soon finds himself looking up into familiar, warm, happy brown eyes accompanied with an equally warm, happy, and bright white smile. His tiny heart warms beneath his chest fur—his chest fur, he has fur—and he finds himself wanting to grin too, so, he does.

“That’s terrifying, Kylo.”

Kylo laughs, although it comes out as an odd chittering sound, so he guesses it can’t really be called a laugh. But it brings another thought; everything about his physical form has changed, down to even the vocal cords.

He's a cat.

A literal, god damn _cat_.

This is the shitty, life destroying thing that wanted out of him? Fucking _ridiculous_. What the hell?

Kylo takes a few steps forward, and then turns around in a circle, following his new bushy black tail before flexing said tail. The carpet beneath his paws feels foreign yet all too familiar. He hums deep in his throat, but even that noise comes out in a way he wasn’t expecting. It’s all quite weird, but…amazing at the same time. 

“So, I'm guessing you like it?”

Oh.

_Oh_.

Does he like it? _Does he like it?_ Oh, his Finn is beyond wonderful, and he doesn’t even realize it. Kylo feels as light as a cloud, and he purrs—purrs! He can purr!—and without even having to think about it, jumps into his lover's arms.

Luckily, Finn is able to catch him, even if he seems to be a little bit startled by the quick action. He starts to laugh, and oh is it lovely; a lush low tone that is music to Kylo’s new, thoroughly improved ears. They perk and move forward, trying to soak up more of the lovely music.

Meanwhile, Finn tries to rearrange the fluffy black bundle in his arms so he can hold the newly turned cat properly, smiling all the while. “You’re starting to sound more like a fully-grown cougar than a domestic house cat, ya know.” He says warmly, “I’m pretty sure you’re a lot bigger than one too. You definitely feel like it, anyway.”

Fingers rub repeatedly over the fur on the back of his neck, searching, yet he pays no mind to it, too drunk on the sky blue smell of bewildered happiness, the cherry red of satisfied accomplishment, and the soothing brown of brave cinnamon. 

_Wait._

Kylo kneads at Finn’s arms. _Finn. Finn. I can smell colors. Colors!_

The fingers drift over a piece of skin that could be considered flabby on a human body, and _pinch_.  
  
Kylo’s body falls into a sort of limp state as he is held in the air, looking into Finn’s eyes. Removed from Finn’s arms, he starts to knead at the air in between his toes, surprisingly content.

“You probably already know, but here’s where we set down some language.”

Kylo flicks his pink sandpaper rough tongue over his maw. _Of course, I’m listening._

Finn gently sets Kylo down on the sigil he woke up on, which glows a sort of creamy color. “Alright, number one; this isn’t permanent, I promise, so there’s no need to worry about whether you’re gonna be living out the rest of your days as a feline. Number two; they’re not here now, but I’m gonna have a place set up in the living room with a lot of buttons with words attached to them, they’ll serve as communication while I figure out a more efficient way to do so. Number three; please, _please_ try to tell me you’re going somewhere outside the house so I can put a Tracker on you.” 

Kylo begins to yowl, the sound quickly rising in volume and pitch. Finn huffs at him. “Yes, I know that sounds bad, but you’re very small and kind of defenseless in this form. The Tracker makes it so I know where to find you and you know where to find me. And that’s all I have for now. We’ll set down some more language as we go.”

His Finn kneels on his knees and places his fingers on the sigil.

It loses it’s creamy color and begins to glow that same deep dark red. Kylo panics, and the fur on his body bristles.

_Wait! Not yet!_ He hisses, low in his throat.

Mere seconds pass between them, “Okay, but you’ve only got an hour. We have to go meet up with Rose and Jannah later today, remember?”

His Finn gives a soft laugh at his nod of assent, making Kylo’s tiny body feel more like jelly than an assortment of bones, muscle, and red fluid. He imagines that Finn finds a cat saying yes with it’s head funny. He would too, honestly.

A calming violet light seeps out from the closed fist of his lover’s right hand, and his eyes become fixated on it while his nose becomes fixated on the navy blue scent of trust that flows from within it.

Kylo’s maw hangs open with anticipation, his pupils enlarging when his Finn opens his palm to reveal—

_His **collar**._

Kylo’s tail shoots straight towards the ceiling.


End file.
